The Stranger with the Tri-Beam Laser Rifle on his Back
by Stelm
Summary: No one dared to ask his business, no one dared to make slip. The stranger there among them had a Tri-Beam laser rifle on his back! Tri-Beam laser rifle on his back! Many men had tried to take him and that many men were dead!
**The Man with the Tri-Beam Laser Rifle on his Back**

I'm sick as fuck man.

I robbed a jet dealer a few days ago, and I was naked except a pair of boxers that had seen better days.

Those two things weren't connected but I robbed a jet dealer in Westside. Soon after I kept my head low in a faded green gas station. I had a lock on the gas station door so anybody who wanted to get in had to answer to me and more importantly to my **Tri-Beam**.

With all the shakes from Jet withdrawal that I was having I probably wouldn't be able to hit the long side of a barn.

The jet that I had taken a few hours ago was making me feel really funny and not in a good way. Like other drug dealers jet dealers in Mojave followed a strict "users can't be choosers" policy. I knew I should've just sold the jet to the Fiends. They'll take damn anything with a needle.

Robbing the jet dealer was a piece of pie. A long time ago I added a beam splitting attachments to my trusty laser rifle. It cost a fortune and I wouldn't sell this gun for the whole Strip. I wouldn't tell any motherfucker how much it cost. You neither!

Anything you blast at is turns to dust in the wind. Anybody who saw the business end of this baby went shitless seconds before his or her atoms became totally volatile.

Or they just forked over their caps.

The aforementioned jet dealer forked over his caps, jet, hydra, and buffout before I could even finish raising my stock. I ran off of the open road of Freeside and nobody said shit. Nobody was there.

Anybody who was didn't give a shit.

Right now my plans were to sleep this craziness off. So I took another healthy swig from the 5th o' whiskey I bought from Atomic Wrangler and laid on the bed sweating my ass off.

I felt like a junkie.

I was somewhere that was not that far from Westside where I usually got my fixing of work, drugs, and pussy.

Most of the work included escorting caravans, boring shit like that. It got really bad in the blazing nuclear summers. This past summer had me walking hundreds (maybe thousands) of miles up and down the Mojave and into some pretty far west ranching properties that may have stretched to old Cali with this laser gun in my hands and a fat Brahmin with a fat backload beside me. Most trips went by smoothly and the ones that didn't never resulted in a lost of cargo. That would tarnish my good reputation.

When I wasn't working I'd usually pass the time by getting drunk and high and either getting some wasteland woman back to my ten by ten square of a room if I could afford one, or buy some pussy (and a room) off the local pimp. Some ghoul named Chirpy. He'd even gotten me some quick caps for watching his girls when they went to the Freeside or the Strip.

I was kinda strung out right now and I didn't know what my next move was.

I had ten caps to my name.

The last big come up I had was this two thousand cap heist in Goodsprings.

I stole some 2,000 caps to some momma's boy NCR technician a few weeks ago in Goodsprings. I'd heard of him out looking for me but at least two years had gone by since I swindled him. Plus if anything had happened I had beams with his first middle and last name on em.

Those 2,000 caps were already gone on the essentials: drugs, booze, whores, food, debts, gambling at the Wrangler, MF Cells (that my tri-beam uses so much of), etc.

Damn, what the fuck was I gonna do in these waste with ten fucking caps?

It was the jet; it was making me think in reels. I needed to go to Silver Rush to get some work. They liked me there. I fixed some problems for them when they arise and they liked me there. I needed to get work to get caps.

They liked me there; at least I'd like to think. Maybe the jet was giving me a false sense of security? What does it mean to like someone anyway?

I felt like I had been doing and thinking the same thing for years. Work, caps, blow caps on cheap thrills, work, caps, blow caps on cheap thrills.

The gal there was always going for my tri-beam, but I would rather catch her in the sack, than in a trade that could possibly mean losing my livelihood. The Tri-beam was less of a weapon and more of a calling card or signature to my name. People knew me around these parts for the Tri-Beam on my back. Even though they'd never get their greasy hands on my tri-beam, I still got a good ass discount, and they gave me a good ass plasma pistol as a birthday present not that long ago.

I fucked the plasma pistol up a couple weeks ago getting drunk at the Atomic Wrangler. Long story short I was getting a look at some guy's gal, and he felt tough so he grabbed the pistol from my holster and threw it across the room. I punched the fucker in the face till his nose-bled crimson.

That's the thing I liked about Atomic Wrangler, it was a come as you are type of establishment. Bring your guns, bring your hookers, and don't bring your clothes. It won't matter!

I could slightly recall the night where I was banging this hooker in the pool at the Ultra Lux. Those white glove faggots beat me with their canes and kicked me out. Fucking uppity bastards they were!

Well anyways I was so drunk I almost forgot about the pistol and once I talked to the girl of the hour she asked if she could travel with me. I told her yes.

The girl in question just left to get some food from the Crimson Caravan.

She had some loose but exciting poon, great head, helluva shot with a hunter's rifle. She was crazy woman. She never complained about the weather or the condition. Never said no to a quick bj in the waste. Never said no to shooting first and asking questions later. Never let me down when some fools tried to double cross us. She was killer with 10mm and a hunting rifle.

I was just training on her how to use my spare laser rifle a few days ago. Damn I loved energy weapons, and I for damn sure love a woman who could use em!

It had felt like hours but finally a slam was heard at the gas station door.

I raised my rifle but seconds later "the girl" Pauline waltzed in wearing an orange jumpsuit, as was fashion for many of the hard-working girls of the waste. Her pasty white skin was drenched in sweat. It was the middle of fall and it was still scorching outside. Sometimes I'd wonder about the times when TVs worked and they told you the weather everyday, and when the radio actually had some good news. NCR radio was just some propaganda filled bullshit that came about when they wiped out the Legion.

Many of those same legionaries became the Fiends and doubled the Fiend's manpower. This posed a new and more lucrative threat. Fiends were everywhere now: out in the waste, in Freeside, West Side, the sewers, on the streets, probably behind you ready to gut you and take your hard earned caps.

"You look strung out as fuck Johnny." Pauline blurted stopping in me in my own lifeless stare as she sat the cotton sack that held our food for the next few days on the floor

"I know I'm pretty fucked up haha." I chuckled before getting up and putting down my Tri-beam, which I subconsciously hold when I'm nervous, "We need to go to Silver… Silver…"

"Silver Rush?"

"Yes!" I said in a higher pitch than was normal. Maybe it was all in my head.

"But Johnny what about tonight baby? I wanna go to the strip." Pauline cried, not literally but she might as well have.

This was a first for two things. One she had never referred to me as baby. Two she had never asked to go anywhere even though we had been running around for about a few weeks now. Now I wasn't against going to the strip but the last time I went I got blackout drunk and lost all my caps.

"Ok."

She threw book bag to the grounds and squealed like a hog as she jumped on me and began unzipping her jumpsuit. I got a good hold on her waist and the rest is on a need-to-know. And yall don't need to know.

 _1 hour later…_

Its a few hours later and we're eating bowls of some Caravan made corn flake Caravan shit that Pauline liked. I was listening to the radio.

They're playing some Muddy Waters jam. I loved that cat. He had so much soul.

My skin was still hot from the sweet pussy Pauline had just blessed me with even though I knew it was just a means to an end it worked. It worked real well. Win-win

I still had a lot to do today and a lot it was something that Pauline wouldn't like to do at all before going out and glitzing out at the strip. It was so shallow, glitzing it up with people probably just as poor as her.

First things first I had to go to Silver Rush to both get my pistol fixed and to collect some payment for a job I did yesterday taking out some smalltime arms dealer who had just got his name out there in Westside. Gloria wanted this kid beat up pretty bad so I followed him one night and beat him real bad with a bat. He was knocked out last time I saw him, fading away as I ran down the dark Westside alleys like I had done many times before.

Gloria owed me 130 caps, not even enough to pay for two stimpaks nowadays even though prices had down since NCR started taking over the market.

I bid Pauline adue after my second bowl of Caravan crap and bust out the garage door ready for the world.

 _2 Hours later…_

"Johnny boy, have you come to sell me that rifle of yours?" Gloria purred as she set down the laser pistol she was cleaning.

"Sure, a cool hundred thousands caps and some ass sounds good." I said grinning. Some of the Silver Rush guards laughed at that one.

"Fuck off Johnny, I got another job for yah." Gloria clapped back and motioned for me to lean over the counter towards her.

"Kill that motherfucker, I'll triple your pay." Gloria whispered with clear anger and resolution. I knew saying no wasn't an option. And tripling your caps was never a bad idea.

"Got it. By the way I need this plasma pistol fixed, put it on my tab." I said at a regular volume throwing the mangled plasma pistol on the weapons display desk.

She grimaced at the sight of the torn pistol and fixed her lips to say something snarky but I turned around and walked away before she could get a breath in.

"Sayonara!" I yelled as I left the sophisticated killers hole in the wall and entered the constant shit show that was Freeside.

Bums were everywhere. Most of them in Fiend form. Some were in circles yelling, drinking and doing hard drugs. Some were passed out asleep or dead.

If anything in this world was a fact it was that Fiends knew how to party.

The Kings were out in numbers too with their guns on the hip ready for something to pop off. Crowds of gamblers and Fiends strolled side by side. Tensions were high.

Some people were here for the fun and fucking. Others were here to swindle and slit throats.

I however was eyeing out Fiend girls. Some of them looked better than a broad you could find at the Wrangler except these broads could wake up and rob you the next morning. They'd also get you high as a kite and introduce you to their crazy ass friends.

I admit to partying with the Fiends.

For a while they were the only people who would take me. I was on Jet and pycho almost 24/7 and I was Eskimo brothers to every guy I knew. Most fiends sold drugs and every drunk gambler bitch wants to try something new so we'd pull some "classy" broads. That was before Fiends grew in numbers and moved into Freeside, West Side, and other parts of Mojave.

These fiends were out here like a cancerous sore taking over all of…

"Hey kid." I heard a male voice say from behind me. Instinctively I spun around and low and behold.

The Fiends.

"What's up?" I asked nonchalantly, not trying to provoke a conflict.

"That Laser Rifle. Its for sale?" The Fiend who was doing most of the talking asked. The guy in question was in front a tight squad of eight dudes. I was outnumbered.

But nonetheless I took my tri-beam rifle out and held it in my hand. I let the Fiends see the rifle, but it was more of a display of the power I could jolt into the Fiends at any second.

"What's your offer?" I asked the potential jacker/buyer. I wasn't expecting a reasonable offer.

"100 caps." The man spat. That was laughable.

"Too thin for my blood man. Maybe next time."

"I got anotha' offer. How bout I let you breathe for twenty more seconds?" The Fiend spoke raising his voice and reaching for his gun.

I had already seen that one coming.

I raised the rifle and pulled on the trigger. The face of the man who was talking was blown off and the girl beside his got a chunk of her brain fried.

I backpedaled as I shot three more times before empting out the MF cell and reloading. By this time four of the crewmembers had dropped and the rest had run off. The Fiends groups sprawled across the street didn't make any moves. If they did it was walking away from the incident.

The fiends were a culture not a gang. It was each man for himself at all times. If a group did things they did them on their own. Plus it was Freeside and any large scale shooting would bring down the NCR hammer.

For years they had spoken on taking over Freeside and the other settlements but it would never happen never!

So as I made my way through Freeside I noticed all the whores and gamblers out to do what they did best. The druggies were passed out on the streets and the Fiends were robbing them as they always did.

I left Freeside and went to West Side. My home. I could smell Fiends from a mile away.

Once I arrived the scene hadn't changed much except the druggies were functional and on their way to buy more drugs. It was Friday, so everybody was partying.

I wanted to get something to drink. I also needed to kill this guy in time for me to go back "home" fuck Pauline and get to go out to the Strip.

Once I got to the local bar it was nothing but yelling and bullshit from the start. The drunks and druggies had the joint packed and I could hear whores screaming from the room above us. It was a complete shit show.

However there were many familiar faces in the dive. One of those men was the infamous pimp Chirp who got his name because some guy told one of his girls that he didn't need to pay her the same because she was a ghoul. The mad man cut his lips and tongue so that it resembled a bird's beak, robbed him, and threw him out of his hotel. Chirp had rooms here and at the hotel down the street.

I sat at the empty barstool beside him.

"Chirp my man, how's business?" I asked cordially. Knowing the man had to be raking in caps with all these horny Fiends around.

"Its booming man but a lot of good customers aren't showing up anymore because of that NCR bitch!"

"Who?"

Chirp sighed, apparently this had been on his mind all day, I was oblivious, "This NCR soldier came down to have some curious fun with one of my gals and as she's walking down the streets drunk and high out of her mind some fags come up and rope her. She gets gangbang raped by some Fiends and stabbed a few times. She makes her way back to her guys back on the Strip and they start saying they're serious about taking over. The way I see it fuck NCR and fuck whoever on they're payroll!"

Chirp was drunk and on drugs. The bartender had already served me a mug, which I had just thrown caps for.

Me and Chirp were getting really hyped on the issue of the encroaching NCR. Out of nowhere some guy taps me on the shoulder.

"Hey yall talking shit? Without the NCR yall would be slaves to the fucking Legion right now! Show some fucking respect!" The douche was clean cut and was built the way a soldier was built.

Chirp, who like I said was drunk on drugs, got up.

"Who the fuck is this kid? Fuck your Bears bitch." Chirp swung and missed. The NCR brat pushed Chirp into a barstool, and some guy who Chirp was with got a bottle and smashed it over the NCR fucks head.

It was a fucking bar fight.

As bottles and fist were thrown with similar velocities around me, I brushed my way through to the exit, leaving Chirp to deal with the madness. My face got a little torn from a bottle hitting me on the way out but as I left the dive I was generally unscathed.

Outside of the bar the scene was the same. Fiends out partying in the daylight and I still had a mark to complete. I decided to walk to the hotel Chirp did his business out of. His bottom bitch ran the desk downstairs. His right hand ghoul ran security.

I walked over to the hotel, making sure to check every corner and crevice for my mark, because chances are if I didn't see him, he'd see me.

His bottom bitch was at the desk like I expected and a light bulb lit up in my head.

"Hey darling. How're things?" I asked Leah, the blonde beauty that was the gem of Chirps collection.

"Same ole same ole. Drugged up dicks that can barely handle my ladies and NCR pricks too scared to hang out around Freeside. You want some pussy today or nah?" She asked bluntly, I blushed.

"No not today. Just wanted to see if my friend was here. He goes by Trey Jacobson." I asked curiously, I had to play this off or it could get ugly.

If I got a whore to fuck this guys brains out I could sneak him and pop him. I've done it thousands of time before. It's been tried on me a few times. It was one of the first few rules in the book of robbing motherfuckers.

"Oh that fella? He came in a few minutes ago looked like he was in a…speaking of the devil." Leah said turning her head to the elephant in the room.

My mark.

He walked down the stairs looked down, but when our eyes locked he knew what the fuck was going down. I had come to finish the job.

He pulled out his decked out Plasma Rifle.

I within a few milliseconds of him pulled out my tri-beam.

A second or two later Leah and Chirps right hand guy, Randy and some goon he was with had their guns trained on both of us. Leah on me, Randy on the guy.

The guy was alone.

"What the fuck is this about Johnny? You can't get off killing my paying customers." Leah said with anger and seriousness in her voice. I knew she would shoot if need be, no questions asked.

"He's scum. He's NCR." I said thinking on my feet, or lying on my feet. Whatever you wanna call it. Everybody in Westside hated the NCR and hated their presence.

"He's fucking lying man I'm just trying to make some fucking caps man. Fuck off!" The man stammered and his plasma rifle began to shake in fear at the situation he had got himself in. He knew he couldn't talk his way out of this fiasco.

I was known here he was an outsider.

"Don't trust this NCR snake, I live in Westside Leah. Who are you gonna believe? I gotta take this NCR snake out of some business he's got his nose in. They don't understand that Westside is ours!" This finally got a positive reaction from Leah.

Her expression changed from one of surprise to one of anger. She lowered her gun.

"Randy take your boy and get that snake down to the basement and take that plasma rifle as well. It's ours."

The face on the arms dealer went from surprise to despair and when Randy demanded that he drop his weapon he did and walked with us to the basement. With guns pointed to his back he marched to his impending doom.

Once we were down at the basement the goons watched as I took care of him. I told the man to get on his knees. He wanted to be tough so I kicked him in the shin. The dealer dropped to the ground after yelping in pain and I put my tri-beam on his neck.

"Who do you get your shit from?" I asked nicely hoping to get some juicy info on where to get more of his goods.

"The Kings ass." The dealer spat before laughing a bit to himself.

DZZZZK

A bright red flash filled the otherwise dimly lit room and the former arms dealer's head was replaced by quickly dissolving fiery red mess. The body went slump and the goons looked like they had seen a ghost do a back flip.

If anything the tri-beam did its job at being extra powerful and extra grand.

The ex-arms dealer lay there on the dusty ground surrounded by old furniture that the cheap brothel threw down here. He was just ass still and lifeless as they were.

The goons and me booked it back upstairs and I drilled Leah on where the dealer resided. She caved in and I walked up a few flights of stairs to floor four, and walked over to room 414.

I keyed the door open and let myself in and to my surprise it is appeared to be void of drugs or alcohol. Over towards the bed however was a computer that undoubtedly held notes from the dealer.

After going through some hacking to guess the password I found some juicy information on the guy's biggest supplier. It was some crazy guy in the hills who owned a shack a couple power-armored guards for some reason. The guy had guessed that the gaurds were Brotherhood of Steel but they may be NCR. He would never get the chance to find out it seemed. I laughed to myself a little on the course of a life that I derailed.

After the moment of conscientious digression I thought to myself, _What the fuck, I have to look for caps and guns!_

So I immediately searched the room for sweet sweet arms, caps, and other booty. There was some caps under the mattress and a few brown bags of caps in the desk drawer. This fucker was loaded. I found ten laser rifles, twenty plasma rifles, a six grenadier dozens of grenades of assorted variety, and a pair of Sniper Rifles. He also had enough ammo to supply a small gang. Clips literally spilt out the closets and were thrown under the bed.

This man was a slob.

I was pondering how I was going to bring all this stuff back to the gas station when I realized I was standing on top of new opportunities.

I looked around me and it looked homely enough for two rascals doing their thing, taking names and taking caps.

I ran back home, literally bustling through the streets of Westside past the blind drunk towns people and brain dead fiends and back to the crib.

"Pauline you'd never guessed the fucking luck!" I exclaimed as soon as I walked in seeing Pauline laying down smoking a cigarette naked as normal.

"They fixed your pistol?" Pauline asked and I shook my head vigorously and blew my heart out telling her the story of my day so far.

She looked shocked by the end of it. I told her to get some clothes on and that we were going the same hotel and she immediately got up and got her things which only contained a few different articles of clothes, a toothbrush, and a few guns.

I got all of my stuff packed as well. Once I looked at the backpack I realized how low maintenance my life had been so far. For years I had ran around with the same book bag, doing odd jobs just to get the caps and sanity to scrape by.

This was the way of the waste.

All I had to my name other than the impending caps was a few clothes the black leather armor I had under a ruby red aviators jacket, a couple different traveling shorts, some jeans, three shirts, my plasma pistol at Silver Rush, a broken hunter rifle that I was leaving here, and around 40 MF clips for my Tri-beam.

My pride and joy. It had taken me out of plenty tough spots and I'd prolly die with it.

It gave me a name in these cold nameless wastes, where every new face was either a new face to feed or a new face to trick and rob.

With all that laser talk out of my mind we took to the streets.

It wasn't long till we got the sleazy hotel room.

I showed the gal the new digs and she dropped her bags and shrieked. This was right before she hugged and kissed me, holding me… squeezing me.

"How can we afford this?" Pauline asked switching her facial expression to one of uncertainty.

"Let's just say the previous tenant couldn't pay the rent." I said proud of my life choices thus far and glad to be where I was at right now.

I had a fine dame beside me and crazy night ahead of me.

First things first I needed booze and drugs.

Drugs and booze does the body good.

* * *

 **STELM: Hey guys I know it's been a while since I've been on the fanfic scene but I'd like to open my spring/summer up with this trilogy that I've had under wraps for a while. I realize that I've never finished any of my stories and I plan to kill off a few of my stories this summer just so they're not just hanging. I already have a good part of this trilogy in word but ideas and reviews are encouraged and appreciated! Sorry for the wait!**


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